til kingdom come
by shiksa goddess
Summary: "I'm going to be better one of these days, I promise you. You just have to wait for me."/ in which Austin Moon is a heartbroken bad boy and Ally Dawson is iridescent. But really they're both just humans. Auslly, AU. For Sophie


**Title: til kingdom come  
Playlist/Inspiration: Til Kingdom Come- Coldplay, Human- Jon McLaughlin, Gone Gone Gone- Phillip Phillips, All That You Are- Goo Goo Dolls  
Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize.  
Warnings: Idk guys I'm too tired to think but there's probably some themes and language so yeah. And for the sake of this story, Ally's parents are still married and live together. **

**Dedication: Okay so I usually don't do this but this one is for Sophie/ a cold day in december.  
Because she's fabulous.**

* * *

Austin Moon was a name that instilled fear at Marino High, though the validity of this reputation was debatable.  
All he really was , was lost. That's sort of how he ended up in this whole mess in the first place.  
But then he found his light.  
And her name was Ally.

* * *

Quiet, that's what she was. She balanced out his bold and brash outbursts with hushed, subtle whispers.  
Her world was delicate and bright in every way that his was dark.  
She was happy and sweet and open, the kind of person he wished he could be.  
But he did not belong in her world as much as she did not belong in his.

However, something kept them holding on.

He's made it a habit of showing up at her door every night.  
Mrs. Dawson would greet him with a wary smile and usher him in and sometimes she would offer him cookies and he would politely take one without telling her how much this all meant to him.  
His mom would never bake cookies. She and his father were too busy selling mattresses.

"Thank you." He'd say, then hurry up to Ally's room.

"I don't like him." Lester said. He knew about Austin's friends and didn't want his daughter involved with their ways.  
Penny would merely shrug.  
"But Ally does."

* * *

Ally would greet him with a smile and a hug and it would be the first time all day that he would feel accepted and right.

"Do you think I'm going to end up becoming like them?" He'd ask, her head snuggled up against his chest.  
He'd leave his vulnerabilities and his heart out on a line for her, because he knew she was the one person in the world who would not damage them.

She'd shake her head. "No. You're too good."

Biting his lip, he'd look down at the top of her head and hold her closer to remember that she was here and she was his.

"I'm not good enough for you, though."

"Don't say that." She protested.

"But it's true."  
A tear slipped down his cheek, descending into her shiny brown hair.

She twisted around in his arms to grasp his chin in her palm.  
"You're _so _much better than you give yourself credit for." She promised.

She was the one person in the world that had ever said that to him. She was the only person who believed that. Where everyone else saw dark and trouble, including himself, she saw light and love.

"Please remember that."

* * *

"You coming with?" Jay said, a devilish grin in his eyes.

Austin shook his head. "Nah, I'm going to Ally's. Her parents are making spaghetti tonight. It's _really _good."

Jay scoffed. "Dude, that girl's not good for you."

_Yeah. _She's _not good for me. _

"Whatever, man." Austin said, walking away.

* * *

He taps on her window at two AM the next morning, hot tears streaming down his face.

"Austin?!" Ally murmurs blearily, opening the window.

"Ally..they," He fell through the window into her open arms. "They did something _really_ bad, and I knew they were going to and I didn't stop them and-" He paused to gulp for air through his sobs.

"Wait, wait, wait." Ally said, panic audibly rising in her voice. "Who did something bad?"  
Austin miserably shook his head. "Jay, he and the guys… they said they were going to go get some smokes at this convenience store that wouldn't card them, and, and the guy I guess he wouldn't give them any, so Jay pulled out a gun and-" He paused again to catch his breath. "He _killed_ him." He whispered, fresh tears shining in his eyes.

Ally inhaled sharply. "How do you know? When did this happen? You weren't involved, right?"

"No, no, I was still here for spaghetti night when this all happened but Dez texted me from the car and told me to call the police."

Ally's eyes were wide with terror. "So… what's going to happen now?"

"I don't know, I mean they're all probably going to go to prison but…Ally I just feel terrible. Like, I should've known shit was going to go down and I should've stopped them… normally they toss crap like this around jokingly, like 'let's go jump that bastard over there' but usually I can get them to stop before they actually _do _anything but.. Ally, they _killed_ an innocent guy. Over _cigarettes."  
_He looked at Ally with such _sadness _in his eyes. She'd never seen him so afraid.

She wrapped his arms around his leather-clad frame and held him while he sobbed.

"You're a good person, Austin, none of this is your fault. There's nothing you could have done."

"Yes there was!" He protested.

She tucked her head into the crook of his neck and rubbed his back soothingly. "Austin, you're going to be okay. It's going to be okay."

"I don't want to go home." He said, pulling back from her embrace. "Can I.. can I stay here tonight? Like, I'll stay on the couch or something, can you just, like, ask your parents or something if I can just stay?"

Ally nodded frantically. "Yeah, yeah, sure." Her eyes were still wide in fear, and though he'd always loved her big brown eyes, it was starting to worry him.

She tugged him by the hand down the hallway to her parent's room.

"Mom? Dad?" She whispered loudly, rapping on the locked door.

Penny answered the door, yawning and stretching her pink nightgown-clad arms.  
"What's Austin doing here? I thought he left hours ago." She asked, not sounding angry in the slightest.

"He did, but… Austin, do you want to tell her?" Ally gave him a pointed look, as if prodding him to do so.

"Um, hi Mrs. Dawson… my friends, they did something _really _bad and-" He felt his words catch in his throat and Ally gave his hand a quick squeeze.

"I.." He sniffles. "I just don't want to be alone tonight." He explained, tears slipping down his face. "Could I just, like, stay on the couch or something tonight, please?"

Mrs. Dawson nodded, unfazed. She was too tired to ask what his friends did.

"Ally, will you make up the couch for him?" She yawned.

Ally nodded. "Thanks, Mom. Goodnight."

After she led him to the linen closet, Austin watched in amusement as Ally struggled to reach for the spare pillow on the top shelf.

"Here." He offered, easily tugging it down. His girlfriend blushed.

"Thanks."  
He smiled down at her. He loved being so much taller than her, it made him feel as if he could protect her, though in reality she was often the one protecting him.

With hushed whispers and quiet footsteps, they headed downstairs to the living room.  
Austin watched nervously as Ally made up the plushy brown couch with blankets and pillows. He sat in the matching armchair, hands clasped, rocking back and forth with a thousand different thoughts flooding his mind, most of them ridden with guilt.

Before he even realizes it, Ally is next to him, giving him a delicate kiss on the cheek.  
"You're going to be okay, you know. It's going to be alright." She promises.

He nods unsurely. He knows that she wholeheartedly believes that things are going to get better and be okay, but he can't see how things can just "be alright" when a human's life was taken coldheartedly.  
A human with a family and a heart and a life still left to live. _  
_  
They stay silent for a while, letting their thoughts fill the empty air surrounding them.  
She takes his hand hesitantly without a sound and he suddenly finds himself getting very, very tired.  
He lays his head down in her lap and that's how they stay until Penny finds them the next morning- asleep, hands still entwined.

She takes a picture as quietly as she can without waking the pair up, knowing they'll want to remember this someday.

* * *

The thing about their relationship was that it was already controversial before any of this crime shit even happened. Everyone automatically assumed that Austin was taking advantage of sweet little pushover Ally and were simply not convinced that two people from different sides of the social caste could be in love without their being some sort of ulterior motive.

Fuck them all, he reasoned. He was happy with Ally and she was happy with Ally and that was all that mattered in the end.  
Sometimes he compared their love story to _Romeo & Juliet_- one of his favorites.  
Except they would not end up a tragedy.

* * *

"Can you just stop being perfect? It makes me feel bad about myself." He teases as he bites into a chocolate chip cookie she'd brought him.

She smiles faintly. "How'd it go?"

He shrugs. "I dunno, basic witness stuff I guess. I just hate it because I feel like I was going to say the wrong thing or whatever and they'd lock me up."  
He chooses not to think about it too much and instead drown his emotions in cookies.

Ally frowns. "But you didn't _do_ anything, babe. They can't lock you up for just _knowing _the guys."

Austin sighs. "I know, but I knew they were going to do something illegal. Just not _this_ illegal."

"Did you tell them that?" She makes a sharp right turn that knocks the Tupperware of cookies to the leather material of his passenger's seat. "Sorry."

"Yeah, I did, but they said I wasn't going to get into any trouble. I just- everyone's looking at me differently, Als. They already think I'm dangerous or whatever, and this isn't exactly helping that."

"Well, I think you're wonderful. Doesn't that count for anything?"

"I guess. It counts for making me feel like I might not be a _total _screw-up."

She laughs. "If you're a screw up, then I'm in love with a screw-up. What does that make me?"

"Charitable." He retorts, purposely not mentioning that this is the first time she's openly admitted to loving him, though he supposes that he's always kind of known.

"You're not a charity case, Austin, and I wish you would realize that."

She's said things like this countless times, he knows, but for the first time he thinks he sees what she means.  
This beautiful, delicate, _iridescent_ girl was in love with him. He, and the rest of the world, saw nothing but darkness and hatred inside of him and she saw light. Every fucking pedestal he put her on, she returned the favor.

He wasn't used to this. He hadn't known what it was like to feel loved until she came around.

* * *

Sometimes she hums. He's not sure if she's even aware that she does it, but sometimes she'll just be holding his hand and then she'll start tracing patterns on his skin with the pad of her thumbs, and then she'll just start humming whatever tune seems to come to mind, and its beautiful and melodic.

"You're really talented." He comments once.  
She looks up at him in confusion, her eyebrows wrinkled cutely. "What?"

"Your voice. You're talented."

"So are you."

He sighs. "Yeah, but only you know that, and only you will ever know that."

Ally leans her head on his shoulder and stares blankly out her large bay window.  
"Do I mean a lot to you, Austin?"

He laughs, because Ally could never make him anything but happy.  
"You mean _everything_ to me, Ally." He promises, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"But…" She pauses.

"Why do you ask?"

His girlfriend shrugs lightly. "I don't know. You just always tell me that I'm the only person you've ever told this or that or that you only trust me to do this or that and I just wonder what ever made me so special."

She doesn't get it, and he has a suspicion that she never fully would.  
"Ally, do you know what everyone else thinks of me? What they've _always_ thought of me, but especially with this whole homicide case going on?"

"I guess they think you're trouble. That you're dangerous. But you're not, I promise you you're not."

Smiling, he squeezes her hand. "See, that's exactly it. You're _light_, Als. You see the beauty in everything, and you always brighten up everything and everyone you come in contact with. You're the only person in my life who ever thought I could be something more than Austin Moon, the bad boy. Don't you think that makes you special?"

Ally shrugs again. "I know you made some mistakes in the past, but you're an _amazing _guy, Austin, okay? And has it ever occurred to you that maybe you're the only person who ever regarded _me _so highly? You put me up on all of these pedestals and it just floors me because no one's ever done that before. No one ever seems to even notice me."

He takes this opportunity to wrap his arms around her shoulders and pull her as tightly as possible without hurting her. He was always afraid that he would do that.

"I notice you."

* * *

_In the past_, she said. _It's all over now, you're a good guy, Austin_. These were all things that had left the mouth most beautiful girl he'd ever known and little did she know that they were lies.

He'd never meant to come back to this. He thought he could be over the alcohol, over the aggression. He thought he could at least make an effort to be better for Ally.

But when Ally wasn't around and the alcohol was, the light she gave him faded and everything was _darkdarkdark_, like this alleyway.

Without a clue of what it really is, he snorts the powder and waits for the feeling that would chase away the pain.

He loved Ally, honestly. But Ally was not a drug and did not deserve to be treated as one.  
That's what this powder is for.

He wakes up in the same alleyway with his mind buzzing and unconscious all at the same time and the first things that cross his mind is how 'alleyway' starts with 'alley' and also the realization that he's probably been gone from home for over twenty-four consecutive hours and his parents' hadn't seemed to be looking for him, or even giving any semblance of concern for their son's whereabouts.

_Who cares? _He rationalizes. _As long as I have Ally._

He sits up and catches a glimpse of his reflection in a shattered piece of stray glass. The sky is bright and blue with early morning innocence, and it all reminds him of Ally. Everything leads back to Ally.

This is why she could never see him like this. He couldn't bear to lose the best thing he'd ever known.

* * *

"Are you okay, Austin?" She asks, clutching fearfully at his side.

He nods. People from both sides of the hallway stare at them in their usual disbelief. They've been together six months already, and it's been three months since the murder. The assaulters are all safe behind bars. He wishes people would stop caring about his personal life and start worrying more about their own.

Ally seemed fairly indifferent to the disdaining eyes that looked at her, questioning her decisions with every move she made. If they asked, she'd tell them that it wasn't a decision. Love saw no boundaries.

But then again, Ally was fairly indifferent to a lot of things in her life. Maybe just oblivious.

"Yeah." He lies. It had been his first night in his own bed and not the alleyways in two weeks and he felt the first urges of withdrawals. "I'm fine."

She clutches him tighter still. Maybe she wasn't so oblivious, after all.

* * *

It's three months back on the crack and the heroin that she figures it out. He has no clue how she could have found him, buried deep in the slums of dirt and despair, but she did nonetheless.

He can see the fear in her eyes as she calls a doctor. He wonders if she can see the shame in his.

* * *

That had been another wake-up call for him. The realization that if he didn't get his shit together, fast, he could lose the best thing he had ever known.  
(For the record, the first wake-up call, the one that had gotten him off the drugs in the first place- that wake -up call was meeting a certain Ally Dawson on the third day of sophomore year.)

So he vows and wills himself to stop. Completely. And yes, his body goes through withdrawals, some worse than others, but he doesn't go back.  
And she stays by him. Promises she'll never leave, that he's trying his best and that's good enough for her.  
(She sees the beauty in everything, after all.)  
(Except herself.)

In the end of it, they were not polar opposites. They were both broken, messed-up teenagers (him more so than her, obviously) who were just trying to pick up the pieces and maybe they'd bumped into each other on the way.

* * *

He always told her that she was light, but she would never truly believe in and they both know this for a fact.

She wraps a woolen blanket around his shivering, convulsing frame and tucks it tight.

He murmurs something along the lines of "Thank you, I love you." And she smiles at him radiantly.

"You're beautiful when you smile."  
She strokes his cheek and brushes the blonde hair away from her face as he falls asleep and then suddenly she is alone in this big, empty house.  
If this was how he'd grown up, she couldn't blame him from trying to escape, frankly.

Her eyes flit from the high ceilings to the marbled staircase, then back to the sleeping boy in front of her who she loved despite his flaws. He loved her despite hers, anyways.

Maybe, she thinks, maybe she'd never consider herself to be _light_ or _iridescent _or even _beautiful._  
But if she was his light, his iridescence, his beauty, if that helped him live, if that made him happy, she could be alright with that.

She sings him a song in his sleep and traces patterns on his hand with the pad of her thumb, for once feeling beautiful.

* * *

He loves her. If there's one thing he is surest of, it is this.  
Loving her entails always wanting to protect her, ensure her safety.

He stares into the eyes of Jay's enemies, some gang that smoked pot and beat up innocent civilians for shits and giggles. They glint evilly, two of them looking at Austin and one of them sizing up Ally's tiny frame, which Austin has pressed close against his own.

He loved her, but they were from two different worlds.  
And he never should have dragged her into his.

* * *

Ally escapes with little harm, just a scratch and a bruise from when Austin had thrown her behind him into the wall of a nearby building so that the other guys couldn't get to her.

Austin, however, was knocked unconscious by the guys, and once he was out, they came after Ally but she picked up a small shard of broken glass and threatened them with it until they backed off.

Her boyfriend-her _hero_- was lying limply on the cold, dirty cement of the sidewalk of the empty street. Blood was caked around various cuts on his face and she sobs over his body, trying to regain enough composure to call 911.

"You're a good person, Austin." She reminds him, hoping that maybe he can hear it.

* * *

The first thing he tells her after he wakes up in the hospital bed is that he loves her.

"I was scared I would never be able to tell you that again and you wouldn't know. I thought you were going to die." He admitted, his knees clasped close to his chest.  
It was the closest thing he'd ever had to being scared- he feared losing Ally.

She smiles tearily and grabs his hand. "I'll always know that, Austin."

"I made a mistake."

"We all have."

He turns to her, wide-eyed. "Yeah, but my mistake nearly got us _killed_. Nearly got _you _killed, Ally. Do you know what I would do if you weren't around? If you had died? Because I sure as hell fucking don't."

Ally squeezes his hand. "But I didn't. You saved me."

He nods, but it doesn't seem to content him.

"I never should've gotten involved with them. I definitely never should've taken you there."

"That's where you live, Austin, you were just going to let me meet your parents."

He laughs spitefully. "Mistake number three."

Ally purses her lips. "It's not your fault, Austin."

His brown eyes well with tears. "Yes, it is, Ally! I stole some crack from them, okay?"

"I thought you were done with that." She whispers tightly, her pink lips forming a tiny 'O'.

He nods frantically. "I am, I am. I just… I had a relapse. It was a while back."

Ally sinks speechlessly into the mint-green chair with the cracked vinyl seat.  
"Ally?" He rasps. "Are you okay? Are _we_ okay?"

She nods quietly. "We're fine. I'm just processing."

"You're not going to leave me, are you?" He whispers. He hates feeling vulnerable.

Leaning back over to the bed, Ally kisses his bandaged forehead. "I'm never going to leave you."

He reaches out and strokes her cheek. She shudders at the touch.

"I'm going to be better one of these days, I promise you. You just have to wait for me."

* * *

Summer quickly catches up to them and Ally's family has decided to go on a two-month-long vacation.

"Stay out of trouble, okay?" She laughs, leaving him with a quick peck on the cheek.

He takes a deep breath and mentally reminds himself that she's coming back. It's the only way he's going to get through these next eight weeks.

"No promises." He teases, secretly promising her with all his heart.

She rolls her eyes and gives his hand a squeeze and he watches as she drives off to some foreign land (California,actually) and wonders how the hell he'll deal without having her around.

* * *

Ally likes replaying moments in her head on long car rides. It's like watching a movie of her own life.

About two weeks ago, Penny had sit down with her at the kitchen table holding a plate of fresh-baked cookies, silently observing her only child working through pre-calculus problems.

"Whatcha doin' there, mom?" Ally questions, slowly looking up to meet her mother's stagnant gaze.

"You love him, don't you?" Penny asks eagerly, biting down into a melty chocolate chip cookie.

No one had to state a name. She just knew, and a blush rose to her cheeks quickly.  
"Yeah." She admitted quietly, grabbing a cookie to eat through her embarrassment.

Her mind had flicked back at that moment to the first time Austin had told her he loved her. It was about two months into their relationship and he was lying in her bedroom after a full meal of Dawson spaghetti and she was stroking the blonde hair that was flopping over her lap and he had been toying with her fingers and suddenly he just said it. "I love you.", as if it meant nothing, while she was quite aware that it was a big deal. She wasn't sure he'd ever said that to anyone before in his life.

Her mother had interrupted her memories with her 'Aww!'-ing.

"You know your father doesn't exactly like him. He thinks he hangs out with the wrong crowd."  
Ally bites nervously into her cookie.

"But you know what I told him? If Ally likes him, then who cares what you think?"

The two Dawson women had burst into hysterical laughter right there at the kitchen table and Ally had realized just exactly how awesome her mother really was.

* * *

He decides to devote the next two months to making himself better. Worthy of a girl like Ally Dawson (but he thought that was pretty impossible.) He checks into rehab and volunteers at a church and a summer camp and he makes new friends that would never murder anyone.

_I'm going to be ready, Ally ._He promises to himself and her alike.

She nods and smiles when he tells her this but is actually very confused.  
She already thinks he's perfect, she doesn't know what exactly it is that he wants her to wait for.

* * *

The moment she returns is a moment of hugs and kisses and the return of the warmth they felt when her body was pressed tightly against his,

The exterior of the Austin Moon she had left behind was vanished. Gone were the leather jacket and the big black boots, in their place, a white t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts.

But Austin Moon, the actual one, beneath the clothing, was still there.

"I'm ready, Als." He'd smiled, and she'd brushed his hair behind his ears.

"Ready for what?"

"I've been trying to be better! For you!"

Ally laughs and takes his hand. "But Austin, I love _you_. You don't need to change. Whether you're wearing a biker jacket or flip-flop sandals, you're still the same wonderful, sensitive, protective, loving guy you've always been."

He scratches the back of his neck. "But you didn't deserve to be with a bad boy."

His girlfriend laughs lightly. He likes the sound of her laugh. He likes her and all of her attributes and general, though.  
Maybe he's biased.

"You've never been the bad guy, Austin. You're _human._ As human as the rest of us."

He kicks bashfully at the grass in her front lawn.  
"To be honest, I just don't understand. I don't understand how I could make all these mistakes and have all of these flaws and you could be _you_ and you could still be in love with me."

"You don't think _I _have flaws? That _I _don't make mistakes? That's the whole point of loving someone, you love them despite the choices they make or the flaws they have because when you love them, none of that matters."

Stepping closer, she stands on her tippy toes so that she can stare straight into his eyes.  
"So that, Austin Moon, is how I can still be in love with you. How I will _always_ be so stupidly in love with you."  
She smiles and her eyes glimmer and she looks like a goddess, but she's human and so is he, but they're both trying to come to terms with the fact that that's okay.

The sky is quickly dissolving to night, and it's getting dark.  
But he already has his light.

.FIN.

* * *

**A/N: DID ANYONE ELSE NOTICE THAT THIS WENT IN LIKE FIFTY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS WAS THERE EVEN A PLOT TO THIS.  
WHAT.  
However I sort of liked writing BadBoy!Austin (though it's kind of a stretch to call him that). I suppose it was a predecessor to a plot bunny I hope to develop soon.  
Anyways, as I mentioned at the beginning, this was for Sophie because she is wonderful and highly talented and unlike me she will probably remember her name. So I hope she does not hate this.I hope no one hates this, actually.  
ALSO THIS IS MY FIFTIETH STORY I FEEL AS IF I SHOULD MENTION THIS SO YAYYYYY.**

(:Tessa:)


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